The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-02-25
PALATKA. FLA. FEB. %. 1887.
Our Restlessness


Visitors seem to think that Florida is
dying because every man Is willing TO
sell. But does the premise warrant the
conclusion? Is it bad sign to see
lively real estate MARKET Is country
Sin a bad way" when its citizens are
restlessly trading, moving about and
swapping lots?" We do not think so.
We believe the present feeling Is insep-
arabic from the settlement Of new
country, and the inordinate influx of
money, and men and new interests.
Was not the whole West in the mar
ket once? Did we ever see such madden
ing activity in real estate as the early
settlers of Indianapolis and Chicago
kept up for years? Were Leadville and
Denver dying when the inhabitants went
wild, and sold lots within an hour after
they had been bought? Is San Francisco
dead? Neither will ORLANDO, and st.
Augustine, and Palatka "play out" be
cause the real estate agent is busy.
Our present population lis emphatically
a restless one. Among us, too, are many
spectators, pure and simple. There is
not only consuming desire to buy cheap
lands for sale again as population fills
up the waste places; the man that makes
a grove for himself sets out another for
sale, that he may make or secure de-
sirable neighbor. Many who have been
sorely pinched by poverty in the late
- Il L. n L.
sion of money from the sale of land
which had heretofore been looked upon
as dead weight. The pastures lately af-
fordIng only food for stock have be-
and farms are springing up around cities
where remains of the primevai forest
are yet green. The change works on the
nerves of the ''old-timer' as glass of
bad whisky does on the brain, and he
becomes reckless and wild in his talk
and habits.
These things are on the surface and are
easily seen of all men. But let the critic
look deeper as becomes his profession,
and he will see signs of solid prosperity
underneath the surface which are OF the
goods that pass not away. In two years
we have transformed Palatka into a
brick city, and her fear of rotting wood
is nightmare of the past. 1t is disaster
that tries the souls of men, and from the
ashes of the past our business interests
emerge bright a. pure gold. Our people
have learned to repose implicit confidence
in their own energies and the glories OF
the future. Ocala and Gainesville and
Orlando have doubled in size, business
and population. st. Augustine is fast
becoming city of palaces, and there is
corresponding Improvement in village
and grove and farm all along the line.
ls there room for despair in a country
capable of such work?
There may be feverish activity in many
Industries and all fields of labor and in
vestment, but the signs are not of un
healthy origin; they are due to the over
into the tasks awaiting the energies of
manhood. The demand on all of us il
heavy and constant. The fever of unrest
and the desire of change is a malady of
the time, not of the people or the situa
ton. 1t is a fever which attacks all in
onr condition, and is like the other
symptoms incidental to earlier stages OF
growth whose dangers we have already
escaped. Each is willing to sell because
"hope lives eternal in the human breast,
and each looks forward tC some fairei
landscape than that in which his
steps are now placed. Little of the
cash realized from our daily sales leaves
Florida. but is again invested. The frui,
culturist of to-day longs to be mer.
chant, and he who handles the tape and
canned goods to-day is ready to exchange
these for the pillow and the orange
tomorrow. Below the surface, how
ever, lives the strong bones and throbs
the greas heart of solid prosperity
around which cluster all the essentials
warranting the hope and confident ex-
pectation of enduring health and vigor
Gus life.
The Drainage Fraud.